Mickey vs. Bugs

Two powerful studios were producing animated movies in the early days of Hollywood: Warner Bros. and Disney. But where as the Warner Bros. studio had problems, especially with there non-animated movies, to work within the boundaries of the Production code, Disney was even celebrating the moralty and purity it requested. Disney simply excluded the biological reality of sex and created characters with higher and deeper motives for action, such as love, power and friendship. Mickey Mouse is the typical example here. He could´t be created any more "harmless". Without whiskers and beastly paws he lacks attributes of a real mouse. He merely appears civilized like a human being and has hands (though four-fingered) which are neatly tied in white gloves. You could say his appearance is nearly sexless and due to his high voice (spoken of Disney himself) you can´t even tell weather he is child or adult. Same could be said for Minnie Mouse of course. As stated in the book "The myth of the American Superhero" from Lawrence and Jewett the sanatizing effort of Disney in its definite expression gets reflected in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937):

The mythic transmutation of the Grimm Brothers` fairy tale clearly indicates in both cleanliness and sexual purity.

In the original tale of Grimm, Snow White is messing around in the Dwarfs house, eating and drinking their reserves and sleeping in their bed, in Disney´s version she is tidying up and cleaning, while all her little forest friends are helping her.

The final detail in the sanatizing campaign is to erase any possible doubt about the sexual implications of a women living with seven dirty old men. Whereas the Grimms allowed the lucky dwarfs to sleep in their beds adjacent to the princess, Disney sends them all downstairs to sleep on the floor. (Lawrence, John Shelton & Jewett Robert, "The myth of the American Super Hero", Wm. B. Eardmans Publishing Co., Michigan, 2002, p. 183)

http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2010/02/06/making-fun-of-the-mpaa-hays-code/

This image couldn´t by any means portray the problem any stronger.
It totally expresses the criticism of the hypocritical boundaries of the production code in which Hollywood had to compress his productions until 1968. Especially the parodied Ten Commandments of the Bible on the board in the background relate to the conservative influence of the church. Referring to an article of the society pages, the image was passed around among photographers and publicists in Hollywood as a method of symbolic protest to the Hays Code.

But where as this picture evokes the impression of a criticism of the old days of the Production code that was abandoned in the late 1960´s, the article also mentions the present impacts of censorship on contemporary movies through the MPAA that was displacing the Code and lessened the restrictions to a certain extent.

The principles of censorship of the MPAA and who exactly made decisions seemed to be kind of mysterious for a long time. For this reason the miraclous decision standarts are subject of investigation in Kirby Dicks movie "This film is not yet rated" (2006), which tries to get an inside into the nontransparent criteria of the MPAA rating board which lead to the deviation of movies into five categories:

G (general audience)
PG (parental guidance suggested)
PG 13 (some stuff unsuitable for under 13)
R (under 17 with an adult)
NC 17 (old "X" rating, must be over 17)

A review of the film describes the crucial points introduced in the documentary:

The best part of the film is the first one [...]I, mainly because we get to know the rules of the game a bit better. Apparently, any kind of "weird sex" is not welcome: oral sex (`Boys Don't Cry`), threesomes(`The Dreamers`, `American Psycho`), gay stuff (`Mysterious Skin`, `Where The Truth Lies`), female masturbation (`Jersey Girl`, a PG-13 movie, almost got an R just because Liv Tyler talks about it)... the list is quite long. Of course, you're better off if your film is endorsed by a major studio. That's why a glimpse of Maria Bello's pubic hair got independent film `The Cooler` an NC-17, while Sharon Stone doing much more in the audience-baiting `Basic Instinct` was "appropriate" enough to receive an R. No wonder most filmmakers hate the MPAA! Hell, we even find out that Trey Parker and Matt Stone deliberately put distasteful material in Team America just to make fun of the ratings board.

The censorship nowadays isn´t criticized mainly for its tabooing of specific subjects like it was back in the days of the production code that actually prohibited movie releases, it´s more about the doubtful classification in the U.S. that is more liberal when special economical interests are in focus and that seems to accept pictures of violence more than pictures of sex.

An actual example of the debate is the comparison of classification of "Black Swan" and "Blue Valentine". Cristy Puchto writes in her article for the film stage: ‘Black Swan’ Vs. ‘Blue Valentine’ – MPAA’s Dark Secret

Simply put Black Swan is drawing comparisons to Blue Valentine because both involve a scene where oral sex is preformed on a woman – but while the former got an R rating, the latter received the dreaded (and box office killing) NC-17 rating. As the Weinstein Company has pointed out in their press release, the MPAA has a clear double standard when it comes to violence and sex in their ratings, noting films that deal with violence against women or rape have often garnered an R while movies involving woman’s ardent pleasure are branded with NC-17. Susman furthers this disparity argument drawing comparisons between the films’ supposedly scandalous scenes.

You Nazty Spy!

Beside banning sexual and violent content their was a political censorship as well. When Warner Bros. wanted to produce a movie about concentration camps in Germany, the production office forbade it with threats to take the matter to the federal government if the studio went ahead. This policy prevented a number of anti-Nazi films being produced in the time before the Second World War started.

In 1938, the FBI prosecuted a Nazi spy ring, subsequently allowing Warner Bros. to produce Confessions of a Nazi Spy being the first anti-Nazi film in Hollywood.

At the same time the short film " You Naszy Spy" were produced that openly satirized Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany months before Chaplin's controversial and more famous movie "The Great Dictator" came up.

You can see it as Propaganda work or the necessary discussion of a political threat in public. Definitely Hollywood here takes a political position within a period where the U.S. was still neutral about World War II.

Warner Bros. Movie World

Beside banning sexual and violent content their was a political censorship as well. When Warner Bros. wanted to produce a movie about concentration camps in Germany, the production office forbade it with threats to take the matter to the federal government if the studio went ahead. This policy prevented a number of anti-Nazi films being produced in the time before the Second World War started.

In 1938, the FBI prosecuted a Nazi spy ring, subsequently allowing Warner Bros. to produce Confessions of a Nazi Spy being the first anti-Nazi film in Hollywood.

At the same time the short film " You Naszy Spy" were produced that openly satirized Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany months before Chaplin's controversial and more famous movie "The Great Dictator" came up.

You can see it as Propaganda work or the necessary discussion of a political threat in public. Definitely Hollywood here takes a political position within a period where the U.S. was still neutral about World War II. As already displayed, the "Warner Brothers" were everything but d´accord with the hanky-panky of the censorship bureau.
The Warner Bros. cartoon "A Tale of two kittys", obviously using Charles Dickens novel "A tale of two cities" as naming basis, directly criticizes the Hays office and code.

In one sequence the character Catstello turns to the audience and says: "If da Hays Office would only let me... I'd give him 'da bird' all right" (with the "bird" being an euphemism for the middle finger, that is an insulting gesture, which were of course band from screen due to the Hays code)

Unsurprisingly the sequence was cut out, before the short first aired on "The Bugs N' Daffy Show", introducing sweet, crazy bird Tweety to the world. Thank you Brothers!

Warner Bros. Movie World

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Warner_Brother_Studios_from_ The_Petrified_Forest_film_trailer.jpg

The Hays Code was supposed to be a self-control for Hollywood without governmental and political influence. In fact, what it turned out to be in the hands of Republicans and the catholic church, there now was a quiet dominant way of censoring movies, which most studios disliked a lot.

One of the studios that economically suffered from the code was Warner Bros founded in the early 20 century. The studio of the Polish immigrants Harry (born Hirsz), Albert (born Aaron), Sam (born Szmul) and Jack (born Itzhak) had developed its own style by producing controversial narratives, social problem pictures and realistic gangster movies in times of the Great Depression, reflecting the cracked confidence in authority and the country's social traditions.

But the Hay´s code somewhat impeded the release of the Warner Bros. products in their intended way. Especially the crime and gangster films, including Little Caesar (1930), Public Enemy (1931), and Scarface (1932), paradoxically this distinctive genre was required to be cleaned up, to display social consciousness and to morally teach. The "classical" gangster film was forced to evolve into other genre variations including: "gangster-as-cop" films and "Cain-and-Abel" sagas such as Manhattan Melodrama (1934) and Angels With Dirty Faces (1938)

But not only the Gangster-Genre was highly influenced by the Hays Code. Also the classic "Casablanca" got a lot attention from Breen, cutting out explicit references to the characters Rick and Ilsa having slept together in Paris and to Captain Renault extortion of sexual favors from his supplicants. However, both remained strongly implied in the finished version. Ironically Breen made it also inevitable to create a new ending, which turned out to be one of the most popular scenes of the film: Instead of celebrating adolescence love, it comes to Rick's noble renunciation. Though, Warner Bros. is anything but thankful for the impact of the Hays code.

Of course there are a lot of other examples of studios and movies being "terrorized" by censorship. The Wikipedia-article about the production code says:

The first major instance of censorship under the Production Code involved the 1934 film Tarzan and His Mate, in which brief nude scenes involving a body double for actress Maureen O'Sullivan were edited out of the master negative of the film. Another famous case of enforcement involved the 1943 Western The Outlaw, produced by Howard Hughes. The Outlaw was denied a certificate of approval and kept out of theaters for years, because the film's advertising focused particular attention on Jane Russell's breasts. Hughes eventually persuaded Breen that the breasts did not violate the code and the film could be shown.

Some films produced outside the mainstream studio system during this time did flout the conventions of the code, such as Child Bride (1938), which featured a nude scene involving 12-year-old actress Shirley Mills. Even cartoon sex symbol Betty Boop had to change from being a flapper and began to wear an old-fashioned housewife skirt.

Hays` Hollywood: A motion picture Czar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Joan_Blondell_banned_1932_publicity_photo.jpg

When you think about Hollywood, the first associations popping up in your mind might be ENTERTAINMENT, GREAT MOVIES, FABULOUS STARS and SUCCESS. The strong, artificial attributes of Hollywood. But looking at it in a more antiseptic way Hollywood is a big industry with a historical struggle in dominance and power of the studios, politics, economy, creatives and publicity.

It is not surprising that the choice of film material is predominantly guided by demands of the audience to produce successful movies. Talking about history, Hollywood faced difficult times during the great depression in the 1930s and it was more important than ever to allure people with modern, unconventional productions. But there was a problem, more specific a man, standing in its way to do so: Will H. Hays. After being the manager of Warren G. Harding's successful campaign for the U.S. presidential election in 1920 and subsequently being Postmaster General, the Republican resigned to become the President of the "Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America" (MPPDA) shortly after the organization was founded.

The MPPDA was founded in 1922 to establish a new self-regulating system in Hollywood , which seemed inevitable after the image of Hollywood suffered from obnoxious movies and off-set scandals. (e.g. one of America's most popular movie stars, comic Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, was accused of raping a young actress) Hollywood was considered to be corrupt, and many felt the movie industry had always been morally questionable, beside this there were a growing call by primarily Protestant groups for federal censorship of the movies.

To avoid political-ruled censorship, the studio leaders in Hollywood accepted the compromise of the "unpolitical" formation MPPDA with Hays at its peak, who was backed by the Catholic church and their Catholic Legion of Decency. Hays tried at first to give advice to the studios by creating certain guidelines and "The Don`ts and be Careful´s", but wasn´t quiet successful in changing the production output that still lead to calls for censorship. Again, the Catholic Church intervened, and proposed a censorship Code, that would later become famous as the "Hays code".
The code was divided into two parts. The first was a set of "general principles" which mostly concerned morality. The second dealt with "particular applications" which was a list of items which should´t be depicted. Some restrictions, such as the ban on homosexuality or the use of specific curse words, were never directly mentioned, but were assumed to be understood without clearly being transcribed.

And exactly this "Hays code" was facing Hollywood in the time of the great depression, when it was so important to produce movies with attention-seeking, violent and debatable content.
So once again the studios merely ignored the desired censorship because of the economical pressure, but also because the dominant liberal and social positions in Hollywood, judging the code as prudish and backward were reacting with reluctance. The Hays code was even openly mocked by the media: "the Hays moral code is not even a joke any more; it's just a memory."

But not for a very long time. An amendment to the code in 1934 made it an obligation to obtain a certificate by the production code administration (PCA) before any film could be released. Under Joseph Breen, who was appointed the head of the PCA, the enforcement of the Production Code became rigid and notorious. If a film was unacceptable and denied a "seal of approval", it wouldn´t be placed in theaters, and the studio would be charged 25 000 Dollars. Breen's power to change scripts and scenes angered many writers, directors, and Hollywood moguls.

Tim Dirks writes in his article about the 193o´s in Hollywood:

Regulations of the [production] code included censorship of language, references to sex, violence, and morality. The conservative and repressive code required, among other things, no promiscuity, no venereal disease, no excessive violence or brutality, twin beds for married couples, no ridicule of ministers of religion, the prohibition of various words ("sex", "hell", and "damn"), and no clear depictions of rape, seduction, adultery or passionate, illicit sex. There was to be no "excessive and lustful kissing, lustful embracing, suggestive postures and gestures." Sinful activity (such as criminality or sex outside marriage) could often exist in a film IF it was punished or if it ended in misery.

As a result, the Hays Code (and similar strictures laid down by the hugely influential Catholic Legion of Decency) directly influenced the content of almost every American film made between 1930 and 1966.

Where was it and where is it going?

Nowadays Hollywood seems to be dominated by Liberals or at least to lean a lot to the left side from the center. But has it always been that way? Looking at the history of Hollywood you can say: Yes!...at least on the shiny side of life..

Jim Larrison writes in his article about the political tendency in Hollywood. Once again he attests the assumption that Hollywood has a left bias:

There are plenty of data points to support the fact that Hollywood leans left (or left-of-center based on research out of Rutgers University), but the biggest is the financial contributions that are given by those in the film industry to political causes and politicians. There is overwhelming evidence that over 80% of the elite in Hollywood support the Democratic party, and that of the top 20 candidates and pacs that received donations from 2000-2007 all 20 were left leaning or liberal in nature. Also if you look at the Presidential election of 2000, where George Bush won to Al Gore, albeit by a very tight margin, less than 8% of Hollywood voted for a Republican candidate.

Larrison also puts some effort in explaining why Hollywood has become this way. According to him there are two main aspects that has to be mentioned to do so. The first aspect is a historical one: In the early days of Hollywood there was a strong Republican support, which lasted until the early 1930's. Under the "laissez faire" approach of the Republicans, studios offered low-paid jobs and binding long-term contracts, that denied the acting stars and other employees to freely market their services to other studios. This unsurprisingly led to an ill-will of the creative people working for Hollywood productions. For this reason, though Louis B. Mayer and a few other studio heads were prominent Republicans during this era, most actors and writers were Democrats, predominantly on the left side.

The other main reason for liberal tendency is according to Larrison simply related to the nature of actors, actresses and creatives as artists. He puts it this way:

...artists may be more sensitive to personal suffering and more personally interested in major social themes and statements than non-artists. They may be more likely to perceive tension between their artistic freedom and the constraints placed on them by the marketplace of consumers. Moreover, civil liberties and censorship issues are very important to artists, and the Democratic Party has generally been less amenable to restrictions on free speech.

Further more, talking about the personal intentions of the artists, you have to take into account that Hollywood is a brand, only working with the attention of a great audience. Hollywood is known for it´s glamour and exclusivity. Thus, it´s important that this exclusivity isn´t associated with elitism and a rich, ignorant class. To make people adore the Stars and Stories in and around Hollywood, they need certain moments of identifying and sympathizing with them. Thus, Liberal opinions are more likely to be expressed and stressed by many individuals in Hollywood. They popularize.

Pop culture, true opinions, revolution, economical success. All those factors influence the Hollyticosphere and it´s creative outcome, that most of us love to enjoy: movies made in Hollywood!

(If everybody is showing the true face is another question, but common`, we here deal with a class of very good actors :)

Read the whole article of Jim Larrison: Does Hollywood have a political bias in general?

How Andrew Breitbart Hacks the Media

//Noah Shachtman about the blogosphere as useful promotion tool//

Breitbart is criticizing Hollywood for using mass media to distribute their liberal point-of-view. But of course their is another side of the medal. Critic Noah Shachtman writes in his article „How Andrew Breitbart Hacks the Media“ on wired.com:

When he isn’t on TV or drinking with rich guys, Andrew Breitbart spends most days combing through the thousands of tips he receives via email, instant message, and Twitter. He passes on the choicest of those to the editors of his three group blogs: Big Hollywood, which focuses on liberals’ hold on pop culture; Big Journalism, which calls out the press for lefty bias; and Big Government, which — take a guess.

Only looking at the two positions of Breitbart and Shachtman, there are a lot of hints that Breitbarts efforts are not arbitrary; liberal tendency seem to be striking in the mass media, which have, more or less, an effect on Hollywood productions. But Breitbart himself discovered a mass-medium- the blogosphere- as powerful tool to work against common structures in Hollywood. Shachtman writes:

For someone who claims to hate the “Democrat-media complex,” Breitbart sure knows how to work it. Few people are better at packaging information for maximum distribution and impact. He is, depending on whom you ask, either the “leading figure in this right-wing creation of a parallel universe of lies and idiotic conspiracy theories” (that was liberal critic Eric Boehlert of Media Matters for America) or “the most dangerous man on the right today” (from Michael Goldfarb, Republican consultant and former campaign aide to John McCain). Breitbart is, in short, expert in making the journalism industry his bitch. “The market has forced me to come up with techniques to be noticed,” Breitbart says. “And now that I have them, I’m like, wow, this is actually great. This is fun.”

Obviously both guys and both political sites nowadays know how to use internet and mass media, blogosphere and politicosphere. In some way they are accusing each other for the very same thing.

Find the whole article How Andrew Breitbart Hacks the Media by Noah Shachtman on wired.com//

Noah Shachtman is a contributing editor at Wired magazine, and the editor of its national security blog, "Danger Room," He's reported from Afghanistan, Israel, Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait, the Pentagon, Los Alamos, and from military bases around the country.

Hollywood´s Big Party

To define who is Hollywood, it might be useful to start with, who it´s not.

Obviously Hollywood is not only one person, nor is it a homogenous group of people. Hollywood more likely works like a brand name. And different people, diverse in positions and opinions, are working for this brand. When we talk about Hollywood, of course, we think of the people who produce and sell mass media and those, being part of the big Hollywood wheel, like directors, actors and actresses, who are standing in the center of America´s attention. As we talk about the political perspective, all these participants inhibit a specific political point of view or at least a political tendency, that becomes evident in their expressions, ways of life and works. The question evolving is, if this political wheel is moving to the left or to the right. Is Hollywood a Republican or a Liberal? As I already mentioned Hollywood can never be a homogenous political group, but assuming the function as brand name, their has to be a certain (official) direction. And there is. Thus, the widespread answer to the question of political tendency is surprisingly clear: Hollywood nowadays promotes liberal, democratic approaches.

Andrew Breitbart, who is considered `one of the ten most important people of the media, who nobody has ever met` is a leading conservative and therefore the exception in the shark tank. In an interview with Peter Robinson from the Hoover Institution he states that 99,9 % of Hollywood is left from the center. He talks about a democrat-media-complex. Of mainstream movies that all affirm the left value system. Breitbart himself helped Ariana Huffington to develop her very successful liberal Blog „The Huffington Post“, but of course doesn´t agree with its political intention. When the Huffington Post launched, he launched his very own blog „Big Hollywood“ and than several more, in order to change the political environment in Hollywood. He claims that the conservatives have to gain more creative power to get the chance to affirm their point-of-view in movies. Categorizing Breitbart a media expert, his critics towards hollywood might be realistic: Hollywood is a Liberal!